RESTRUCTURING THE POLITY IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF ALL THE FEDERATING ZONES   BY  TEMPLE OGUERI ONYEUKWU 

BY  TEMPLE OGUERI ONYEUKWU

The ten day nationwide protest from 1st August to the 10th of August has come and gone. It is now time to take stock, reflect on the strike, the gains and the loses it occasioned. The greatest motivating factor for the strike may be linked to the alleged insensitivity, arrogance, flamboyance, unprecedented corruption and impunity among the ruling class while the majority of the citizens can barely afford one square meal.Since the inception of this administration, the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made many overseas trips in his bid to convince foreign investors to come and invest in Nigeria. Are these trips necessary when the multinational companies in Nigeria are folding up and relocating? Many multinational manufacturing companies have closed their manufacturing plants in Nigeria and relocated. How do you convince foreign investors that your environment is conducive for investment when it is crystal clear that the direct opposite is the case? International oil companies have folded and sold off all their assets to local companies that their professional competence is in doubt and oil production is declining on a daily basis. Crude oil theft is on the increase; our crude oil has been forward sold by former president Muhammadu Buhari.

 The present administration is also towing the same satanic process of forward selling crude that has not been produced.Nigeria appears to have been living on borrowed times over the years with the government subsidizing the cost of living of the citizens as a result of the fuel subsidy the previous administrations were paying. On his inauguration, president Tinubu declared that fuel subsidy is gone. This singular declaration, though well intentioned has brought about untold hardship on the generality of Nigerians. When this was closely followed with floating our currency, hell was let loose, inflation spiraled.  Presently we are heading to stagflation. The citizens expected the government to adequately address the unintended consequences of this twin economic policies. Unfortunately while the citizens were asked to tighten their belt, the government and its agencies became more profligate. Those in government are living large as if we are in normal times. Expectedly before such far reaching economic policies can be adopted in any economy, it is required that the economy will be a net exporter of manufactured/processed goods and not raw materials. This is not the case with Nigeria.

 It is expected that the infrastructure in the economy supports economic growth. Again this is not the case with Nigeria which is largely a generator economy. It is expected that the productive population of the economy is gainfully engaged in productive ventures. Again we have more than 40% youth unemployment rate. Essentially, it is the environment that largely determines economic policies in any society and not the prescription of the World Bank and IMF. The Nigerian environment which has been described as the poverty capital of the world does not support the above economic  policies of the present administration despite the fact that these policies require long gestation periods before positively impacting on the population when the environment is right.In the recent past I observed that the Nigerian state cannot work as presently configured. Apart from the Igbo nation that believes in the Unity of Nigeria especially demonstrating it is their action of settling where ever they are, no other ethnic group in present day Nigeria seems to believe in the unity of this country.

This has always given rise to the desperation ethnic group’s exhibit in their quest for political power especially the presidency. Once this power is grabbed by hook or crook by kleptocratic kakistocrats, what follows is looting, bigotry and unbridled corruption by the appointees of the president who of course will be favoured with ministries, Departments and Agencies described as juicy. It is a turn by turn issue. Nobody is interested in fighting corruption which appears to have been institutionalized from highest level of governance to the least and has seriously permeated our life style from the church/mosque to the school, to the market place, to the home. Fighting corruption in Nigeria amounts to endangering one’s life because you no longer know who the enemies are. Everybody is involved in one type of corruption or another.Nigeria is not working and cannot work as presently configured.

We are not practicing federalism as should be. The federal government must shed weight and devolve powers to the states while concentrating on issues like immigration, foreign affairs, defense, customs and other essentials that bind the country together. The states and/or zones must be allowed to exploit, manage and control their resources while paying tax to the federal government.Tertiary Education is one of the highest cash cows in UK. You can see many UK Universities coming here to interview our children, offer them admission because they have good standards at competitive costs. Our Universities must be granted the necessary autonomy with the appropriate regulatory authorities to turn them around. Sporting activities is another cash cow in the UK especially football. Take a look at the stadia when any premiership match is going on even during winter. These are not issues the federal government should be dabbling into. The refineries have not worked for about 15 years or more because they belong to the federal government and those in government at the federal level who are beneficiaries of petroleum products importation are said to be sabotaging the turnaround maintenance of the refineries. Why should the refineries work when management is dominated by people from a particular region, More that 75% of oil blocks are allocated to people from the same region while the oil producing communities are enmeshed in environmental degradation, devastation of the environment by regular oil spillage and poverty. Go to any oil producing community in the south south to south east and see for yourself the level of poverty and wickedness Nigeria has visited on them while exploiting their oil. On a regular basis the country is fed with the news of the destruction of several illegal refineries.

Why can’t the government convert these illegal refineries to legal refineries, regulate their operations and create employment? Bring them together into co-operative societies of unconventional refineries? Many state governors live and govern their states from Abuja. Some of them have become personal assistants to the president to the extent that they attend all the functions at the presidency whether in the morning, afternoon or evening and only visit their states on special occasions. They have become emperors.

They collect state and local government allocations in Abuja, change them to foreign currencies. This impacts the value of our currency negatively. There is no gainsaying that many of present day governors and their commissioners were/are guy men who had never employed anybody in their lives apart from personal drivers and gateman. Many of them did not have any business before becoming governors or  political appointees and many are not willing to establish any after their tenure. This accounts for the opulence, flamboyance and arrogant life style that citizens see and detest.Do you know that Nigeria is said to have the highest cost of production of a barrel of crude oil among all OPEC member states? Even the world over.  Nigeria produces one barrel of crude at a cost of about 48USD. All over the world, cost of production of a barrel of crude ranges between 5USD and 20USD. All can see the level of corruption. Inflating the cost of production to these astronomical level is inhuman and unthinkable. Work for EFCC instead of looking for youths engaged in yahoo due to frustration and lack of opportunities. I don’t support yahoo yahoo.The protest brought many issues to the fore. The level of insecurity in the country is worrying. A situation where travellers are kidnapped on the high way, prospective youth coppers reporting for National Service are kidnapped and kept by the kidnappers for one year before regaining their freedom, farmers are attacked, killed and/or kidnapped in their farms, villages are attacked and driven into IDP camps while the invaders occupy their villages after a few months, while the government and security forces look the other way; cows are unleashed on peoples farms by alleged armed herdsmen, will any sane investor risk his fund in such an environment? A country where the government can afford to deploy more than 10000 police men and officers for an off season election in a state and yet cannot deploy same number to wipe out renegade bandits, terrorists and kidnappers in Sambissa forest? What a county?

The protest has provoked the government to take some pannick measures like suspending duties on import of grains and other food items for six months instead or outright ban. Is this the right decision? The primary responsibility of the government is the protection of lives and property of the citizens. This pannick measure will affect the farmers negatively. The government should ensure farmers have security to go to their farms all year round. State police is part of the solution. Nothing stops local governments from creating their own police to police their respective local governments. Fundamentally the Nigerian social, political and cultural environment does not support the policies floating the currency and abrupt removal of fuel subsidy. The government must interrogate remedial measures necessary to align the policies and the sociopolitical and cultural environment of Nigeria to ameliorate the negative impacts on the medium and long term. Palliatives cannot and does not work. Let the environment be conducive for productive engagements of the citizens. Surely they will take sometime to start manifesting if the leadership shows the political will and exemplary cuts in the cost of governance.The government must get its priorities right. This is not the time for presidential yacht, presidential plane, renovation of VP house with about N14B Naira, this is not the time for members of the National Assembly taking N21m as allowances per month home. This is not the time for bloated entourage to go look for foreign investor. The government must be intentional in cutting the cost of governance. The eyes must now shift to the subnational – governors.If the states are developing, many people will not care about the federal. Afterall the federal comprises the local governments and the states. The state governors control both the allocation for the states, the local governments, ecological funds, 13% derivation fund, internally generated revenues of the state and in some cases some massive borrowings. There are no visible developments in the states to justify even 40% of the funds available to them. The subnational must be prepared to avoid the next protest by embarking on projects that can inspire and motivate the productive populations to engage in productive ventures.What is the Federal government doing in the ministry of agriculture when the law vests the control of the entire land mass on the state governments? What is the federal government doing in the ministry of livestock development, what is the federal government doing in the ministry of education apart from regulatory, functions, what is the federal government doing in the ministry of sports and youth development, what is the federal government doing in the North East, North West, Sought East, South West, North Central development commissions, what is the federal government doing with road safety, what is the federal government doing with ministry of housing, what is the federal government doing with the ministry of solid minerals. What is the federal government doing with the ministry of women affairs?Why is the federal; government collecting VAT and sharing to subnational and itself when the constitution provides that VAT belongs to the states where it is generated? At a stage the federal agencies even established marriage registries. What a federal system we practice Our Federal system is fundamentally flawed – Tinubu is not a magician but can only leave a lasting legacy if he restructures this fraudulent federal system we are practicing. Economic growth and development are products of a true federal system and not a rent seeking contraption as we have now.

 Restructuring the polity is in the best interest of all the federating zones though those who believe in the feeding bottle fraudulent federation in practice today will oppose and sabotage it, yet if the president will muster the level of political will be deployed to become president, then restructuring, the best that can happen to the nation will become a done deal. This is a challenge.No president can achieve anything under this convoluted fraudulent federal system. Until true federation is instituted in our country, no progress can be made. Instituting a true federal system through fundamental restructuring will be the greatest achievement of this administration.

The administration would have resolved more than 60% of the problem bedeviling the fraud called Nigeria.Nigeria is not working, cannot work and will not work until we consciously and intentionally restructure the fraudulent federal system in place today. We must accept the truth for the country to make progress.

Sir Temple Ogueri Onyeukwungozindigbo@yahoo.com

August 2024